Books that made you laugh out loud

[toolazytothinkofausername]

Please can you suggest a book that made you laugh out loud. I need more laughter in my life right now, and I am bored of streaming TV/film

Yes to Bill Bryson, especially his earlier stuff.
I think Tom Wolfe is the funniest writer ever though. A couple of chapters in his books (Bonfire of the Vanities, The Right Stuff) have had me literally weeping with laughter.
Nomad by Alan Partridge.

Hitchikers has got me through some bad times. It's my happy place.

Diary of a Nobody hasn't been mentioned yet - seminal Edwardian book and a must read. Precursor to so many comedy diaries - speaking of which - Adrian Mole hits the spot.

I know it sounds surprising but the Age of Innocence has a lot of observational comedy, it's a study of a ridiculous society and very wry. I was really surprised when the film was more melodrama.

Another vote for Janet Evanovich the Stephanie Plum series. I genuinely laughed out loud reading these books

Older and Wider by Jenny Eclair

Any David Sedaris
Any Bill Bryson
Danny Wallace “Yes Man” and “Join Me”
Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

Follow my last post, I had to stop reading Yea Man on the train as it was getting embarrassing laughing the whole journey

A bit more obscure but if you can find it " "On the origins of Findo Gask" made me actually cry with laughter. A coming of age tale of an ugly teen in the Highlands of Scotland who decides to rebel against....well, everything. Rude, irreverent and v v funny. Iove it

I've been gently chuckling at 'the Thursday murder club' for the past couple of weeks - not laugh out loud but gently amusing.

If you're English, the Bill Bryson to start with is Notes From A Small Island
Younger readers may not be as familiar with the England it describes, as times have changed so much since he wrote it, but if you're 35+ you'll definitely remember the things he talks about.
It's really good at making us look at ourselves and say 'why do we do that?'

But mostly I si there chortling, snorting, and thinking 'yes, yes!'

Yes Man by Danny Wallace. Don't be put off if you've seen the film with Jim Carrey. That was appalling and nothing like the book.

@Ormally...is that the one with the horse on the beach? I cry with laughter every time I read that!

Yes to all Bill Bryson...James Herriot...Gerald Durrell. Love them all 😊

Yes to diary of a nobody. An old book, but it had me in stitches and I love how a lot of what people find funny hasn't dated!
The Peter Kay autobiographies. Honestly, I was laughing that much I had to put them down more than once until I'd recovered.
I'm going to read them again soon. Brilliant!

Squire Haggard's journal, Michael Green.

Also my housemates banned me from reading anything by Bill Bryson in the living room, back in my 20s. The snorts and giggles put them off the TV.

Ditto to the Mapp and Lucia series. Just going through them now on my Kindle.
And less laugh out loud but very funny IMO, Crampton Hodnet by Barbara Pym. Set in N Oxford pre WW2 so a real period piece now, but a lovely, thoroughly escapist read, if that’s what anyone fancies.

@TwoBigNoisyBoys That's the one! So much so that I kept doing private laughing for apparently no reason when visiting Lulworth Cove a couple of summers ago on holiday (nothing like as quaint and rural now as in the story, and no traces that day of any large animals...)

If you like Wodehouse and Stella Gibbons I can recommend Diary of a Provincial Lady by E M Delafield.

This Is Going To Hurt by Adam Kay was the last booked at laughed aloud at. Genius writing.

@JimmyJabs

Yes, the opening chapter of Notes From a Small Island, where he stayed at a horrible boarding house in 70s Dover. It sounded so awful that I'm surprised he stayed in the UK for so long!

I had tears running down my cheeks the first time I read Lucky Jim. I was about 15 at the time. Now I'm older, I can see that there's some troubling misogyny in there, but I still think some of the comic set-pieces have never been equalled. I smile whenever I think about it.

@JimmyJabs Lucky Jim had the same effect on me, at a similar age - something about beads up noses...

Also Sellars & Yeatman - started with 1066 & All That of course, and went on to And Now All This - I was reading that one in the (quiet) school library and had to be sent out.

(I’m another Bill Bryson fan too. Some of Notes from a Big Country also made me quite hysterical - especially the chapter about domestic injuries, caused by eg trousers and folding money. Tried to read it out loud to DH. Couldn’t.)

@Ormally I only have to think about that story and I’m almost crying again 😂 brilliant, brilliant writing. I’m going to dig the book out again, I could do with a giggle 😄

Janet Evanovich "I need an emergency soccer mom hairdo..." Yes.

Get the Hitchhiker's Guide in the format of the original radio series, on audio, if you can. Better than the books. Also Herriot, Beckwith and Lodge. And Sellars and Yeatman is great (as are the Molesworth books by Searle and Willans).

Funniest book I've ever read though is a bit niche - The Ascent of Rum Doodle by WE Bowman - it's a spoof of all the great "first ascent" mountaineering books of the 1950s and is tears-down-cheeks funny.

If you like rom coms Tracy Bloom, Rich Amoii, Keris Stainton, Pernille Hughes, B R Maycock, Fiona Gibson, Zara Stonley. Hopefully you find something good OP!

The Why Mummy series by Gill Sims, (Why mummy Drinks, Swears, Doesn't give a %&*¥). At some parts there were tears rolling down my cheeks as I was laughing so much.

The Gates by John Connelly... it's actually a kids/teens book and starts with a bunch of bored adults having a dinner party and accidentally opening a portal to hell...

Absolutely brilliant to read ..I snorted laughing so many times on a transatlantic flight that the other passengers were looking to see what I was reading

Can’t add much as PG Wodehouse and Bill Bryson are the only authors who have ever made me laugh so much I got stitches, but if anyone is looking for books for their kids PG Wodehouse’s school stories are also amazing. There’s a bit on a large globe in a schoolroom that left me helpless with laughter.
I can’t imagine finding Elinor Oliphant funny, though, it’s heartbreaking.